Ukrainian troops have pushed forward and a battle-scarred stretch of the front has fallen silent after Moscow ordered one of the war’s biggest retreats, although Ukraine warned that fleeing Russians could still turn Kherson into a “city of death”.

A small group of Ukrainian soldiers was shown on Ukraine’s state TV being greeted by joyous residents in the centre of the village of Snihurivka, about 55 kilometres north of Kherson city.

A Ukrainian flag fluttered above the square behind them.

Reuters verified the location of the video.

“Today, on November 10, 2022, Snihurivka was liberated by the forces of the 131st Separate Intelligence Battalion. Glory to Ukraine!” a commander declared as dozens of locals applauded, cheered and filmed the soldiers on their phones.

A few kilometres away, in a devastated frontline village reached by Reuters in an area already held by Ukrainian forces, the guns had fallen silent for what residents said was the first quiet night since the war began.

“It’s like there was no war,” Nadiia Nizarenko, 85, said as her face was lit by a bulb powered by a car battery in the cramped apartment that she, her daughter and son-in-law had refused to abandon as fighting had raged daily around them.

“We hope the silence means the Russians are leaving.”

Ukraine’s army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said Ukrainian troops had advanced seven kilometres in the past 24 hours and had recaptured 12 settlements in the south. But he would not confirm whether Russia was indeed pulling out as announced.

“We continue to conduct the offensive operation in line with our plan,” he wrote in a post on Telegram.

The frontline villagers were leery of Russia’s intentions.

The Russian forces could be preparing a trap, Ms Nizarenko’s daughter, Svitlana Lischeniuk, said as she unloaded cans and jugs filled with well water from a trailer hitched to the family car.

Still, there was joy.

Petro Lupan, a volunteer distributing bread to residents, told Reuters he could not find words to express his feelings after he learned of the recapture of Snihurivka from a friend reached by phone there.

If Russia implements its withdrawal from an area that President Vladimir Putin proclaimed annexed a month ago, it would be its biggest retreat since its forces were driven back from the outskirts of Kyiv in March, and a clear shift in the momentum of the nine-month-old war.

Russia ordered troops on Wednesday to withdraw from the entire Russian-held pocket on the west bank of the Dnipro River, including Kherson city, the only regional capital it had taken.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said on Thursday Russia wanted to turn Kherson into a “city of death”, mining everything from apartments to sewers and planning to shell the city from the other side of the river.

“This is what [the] ‘Russian world’ looks like: Came, robbed, celebrated, killed ‘witnesses’, left ruins and left,” he wrote on Twitter.

Russia denies it abuses civilians, despite bombarding residential areas throughout the conflict.

It has ordered thousands of civilians to leave the Kherson area in recent weeks in what Ukraine says included illegal forced deportations.

Mr Zelensky mentioned Kherson just once in his daily overnight television address.

Ukrainian forces were strengthening their positions “step-by-step” in the south, he said.

“The enemy will make no gifts to us.”

Ukraine’s public wariness may in part reflect its urge to keep its own operations secret as it plans to inflict as much harm as possible on the thousands of Russian troops likely to need to be transferred across the river by ferry.

Asked about Kherson in an interview with CNN aired on Thursday, Mr Zelensky said he could not give details, because “I really want to have an unpleasant surprise for the enemy and not something that they’re prepared for”.